"So you mean to tell me people actually… live here?" Ten said. Over the three days after cutting south from Highever, the elevation had climbed slowly but steadily as they made it into the foothills. The change in topography became more dramatic the further they went, and slowed them significantly. It was also getting on into autumn, even in the lowlands, and looking back over where they had come, it was fascinating to see how the leaves were brown on one level, then gold further down, and still summer-green at the bottom of the valley.
On the evening of the third day, having spent the majority of the day climbing in earnest, they had come to some flat land along the road, which was cut into a steep hillside, and taken a breather. The altitude was getting to all of them to some degree, though strangely it was Sten truly seemed to be having the most trouble with it. He was lagging a long way behind the rest of them, refusing offers for the rest to slow down, though Pigeon had decided that he would not be left all alone to struggle up the path and stuck encouragingly by him. Wynne, showing her age for the first time that Ten had seen, excused herself to sit and try to catch her breath, finding it difficult to talk and move at the same time. And so it was left to the five who had not yet seen thirty to get the camp together, which none of them truly could complain about.
"I have heard things about… mountain people," said Lelianna, pitching her tent with a skill that Ten found quite impressive, "They are isolated, of course, and it leads to strange ideas about the world. I won't lie, I am a little nervous about spending the night here."
"I have heard they… breed their own stock," Zevran said.
"That sounded like a euphemism for something, but I'm not sure what," Alistair said.
"Someone send this man back to the cloister where he belongs," Zev sighed in irritation, "Incest, man. It refers to incest. You take the fun out of everything."
"To be fair," said Ten, who'd gotten her own tent together and was busy gathering rocks to line a firepit, "I thought you were talking about cannibalism."
"They probably do that too," Lelianna pointed out.
"Fitting for a house of the holy to be in such a place," Ten sighed, looking up at the mountains, which were silhouetted darkly against the sky, "Dark, creepy, and full of deviants. Just as the Maker intended."
"You know he just made the incest and cannibalism stuff up, right?" Alistair protested.
"Oh I don't know about that," Morrigan chimed in, "You'd be surprised what people get up to in the really isolated villages."
"Didn't you grow up all alone with your mother in a hut defended from the outside from several layers of magic?" Alistair pointed out.
"Well certainly not the first bit, but what in our brief history together would lead you to believe that there was no cannibalism?" Morrigan said.
"Say, they fed you for those three days while I was out, didn't they," Ten observed, "So I guess you'll fit right in here."
"Wait, that was a joke, right, Morrigan?" Alistair demanded, "Right?!"
The witch smirked and went on about her business, charming a stand of saplings into bending in towards each other in a circle and covering it in a length of sailcloth that would cut the worst of the winds which were sure to howl down off the mountains all night.
Ten piled rocks from the side of the mountain into a fire pit and was struggling to get her little pile of kindling to light, "I feel like my eyes are going to pop out of my head," she groaned, "How much higher could it possibly be?"
Morrigan knelt beside her and whispered words in some ancient tongue, which did the trick, and the pile of bark and pine needles went up. Ten thanked her and put a couple of logs on it. It was well and truly chilly up here, a good twenty degrees drop from where they had started in the morning. She wasn't looking forward to trying to sleep on the cold ground, and realized that even after they had left the mountains, winter was going to come to all the land eventually.
"If I'm not wrong," said Lelianna, "The road we're on ends at the village of Haven, which we should reach… sometime tomorrow."
"Strangely comforting name for such a forbidding place," Zevran remarked, "I was built for drinking wine and jumping into bed with strangers, not… whatever this is."
"You're free to go back to the lowlands and collect however many new varieties of venereal disease you choose," Ten said, "I don't own you."
"Ah, but you do. I'm a marked man, and you're the first person to get the drop me since I was just a lad. I don't trust anyone else to stand between me and a knife in my back," he replied, "And have you reconsidered my previous offer given the temperature?"
"Your persistence does you no credit," said Ten, "Stop making it weird."
"Anyone else?" Zev asked, raising his eyebrows. He was met with glares from the others. Even Wynne turned and gave him a look that would wither flowers on the vine. He sighed, "I am woefully unappreciated, you're all so incredibly prudish."
"I suggest you proposition Sten," Lelianna suggested, "To his face. And be persistent. He'll love that."
"You could sleep with the donkey if you're cold," said Morrigan.
"Absolutely not. Stay away from Jenny. She's an innocent creature. She'll sense the filth in your brain," Ten said. Jenny's ginger coat had been growing shaggier by the day, yet another reminder that colder days were coming.
"Tell that to that refugee's jack outside Denerim," Zev said, "The 'innocent creature' is quite the exhibitionist."
"Yes, well, we all got a little slutty in the big city, didn't we, Jenny?" Ten insisted, stroking the donkey's nose, "It's to be expected isn't it. You're only a girl, after all."
"Speak for yourself!" Morrigan exclaimed.
"Oh please, I refuse to believe you spend that much time as an animal and have never once tried it out," Ten said, "There must have been a few handsome rats in the sewer."
"Now that was - what is the phrase - out of pocket. Even for me!" Zev commented, "I take back what I said before."
"That… never once occurred to me!" Lelianna exclaimed, "Morrigan, have you?!"
"I am not dignifying that with a response!" the witch exclaimed.
"That means she has," Zev said.
"Oh, come on, you have to tell us. Wolf? Bear? Spider? Oh I bet it's spider, they bite their mates' heads off afterwards," said Ten, "I can see it in my mind's eye."
"Oh, what was that I heard? Three libertines with their minds in the gutter who truly wish to be toads?" Morrigan exclaimed.
"I lost the thread of this conversation some time ago," said Alistair, "What are you all on about?"
"There, look, you're confusing the child," said Morrigan.
"Wynne, what are they talking about?" Alistair asked.
"Trust me, young man, you will not be better off for knowing," said Wynne, but from the tear tracks on her face and the shade of red her face was when she turned to rejoin them, she had been laughing silently into her hand the entire time.
"Oh, come on, you can't not let me in on this one…"
"Andraste's left tit, we were saying how Morrigan must have fucked an animal while she was an animal. There, I've explained it, and now it isn't any funny anymore," Zev said, crossly.
"Oh but the look on his face certainly is," Ten said, "Alistair, considering how much of your life you've spent around large groups of men you cannot be this shocked at dirty jokes."
"I have no idea how the three of you manage to be both filthier and more creative than a whole barracks full of teenage boys," he said.
"To be fair," said Lelianna, "Given their experience it's probably just "Ha ha, women exist. Somewhere. Not here. But out there I have heard that there is a legendary thing known as a breast.""
"To be fair they probably said 'booby' or something," Ten said, "Speaking of which, should we be worried about Sten?"
At the sound of his name, but evidently not the previous part of the sentence, Sten called out from just beyond the circle of light around the campfire, "Fear not!" then silence. A great breath. "I" he took another breath "have" a gasp "arrived."
"Sit down," said Ten, "Come on. Get your head between your knees."
Sten collapsed into a sitting position by the fire and did so. She got him a waterskin, which he drank gratefully.
"Deep slow breaths. Get your heart rate under control," she said, "Lelianna, is it much higher?"
"I don't think so," said Lelianna, "We should gain about another two hundred feet before we get there, which I hope will be before sunset tomorrow."
"Can we take a couple of days?" said Ten, "Try to acclimate? I'm worried. I don't feel like I'm in fighting shape. Sten certainly isn't. If there's anything scary up there I'm afraid we'll be totally fucked. The people who live up here must have lungs like horses."
"We have the supplies," said Morrigan, "But do we really want to spend any more time here than we need to?"
"It's hit the two of you the hardest," said Alistair, who'd gotten over his consternation at the prior topic of conversation, "Just stick to the back."
"That would be… dishonorable," Sten said.
"I am not at all criticizing your skills on the field," Alistair said, "But let's be honest, the psychological impact of a man your size is half the battle. Around here anyways."
"Were I in better form I would challenge you for that statement alone," Sten said.
"You've been doing this for weeks," sighed Alistair, "The same thing always happens. You challenge, we spar, half the time I get you to the ground, half the time you get me to the ground, then either Ten or Wynne yells at us to stop or they'll withhold first aid but never do, so let's just call this one even and save our energy for whatever's actually trying to kill us."
"You… perhaps have spoken some sense, at last," Sten said. He tried to rise, but immediately sat back down.
"All right, come on big man, let's get you down for the night. Ugh, you're going to snore like a damn bull up here aren't you."
"It'll keep away predators," Ten offered.
"We'll be lucky if it doesn't start an avalanche," Lelianna observed.
Ten sat herself by the fire and dumped her potions out on the ground. She wasn't sure exactly how the whole thing worked, but imagined that each breath was just not getting her as much air as she was used to. She tried a couple of elixirs - one did away with the headache, and she passed it around - but the feeling of lightheadedness was not going away. Resigned to it, she crawled into her tent, for once inviting a very delighted Pigeon inside with her just for the body heat, and fell into an uneasy sleep.
She dreamed that night that she was standing high on the peak of the mountain she was currently sleeping on the side of, and looking down into the valleys all round. The colors were muted, not the vibrance of autumn on the slopes in the middle nor the lush green at the bottoms. Everything felt muddy, and there was a roar in her ears as though the ocean were right below her, rather than miles and miles away. The dragon of her dreams flew across the livid yellow sky, perched on a peak, and roared.
She awoke with a start, startling Pigeon but only enough for her grunt resentfully, roll over and immediately go back to sleep. There was a familiar tingling feeling up her spine. There's only one of them. But it's very, very large. She crawled out of her tent. It was closer to dawn than dusk, but not by much, though this high in the mountains the stars blazed brighter than the moon at sea level. She looked towards the peak she had just dreamed herself perched on. The tingling in her spine rose to a buzzing, and there, a barely visible silhouette, was the skeletal form of a dragon. It tipped its great head up to the sky and opened its mouth.
It did not make a screeching cry like the dragons of her dreams did, but a sound so low she could feel it rather than hear it, vibrating in her feet and head, filling her with existential dread.
Oh shit. That's the one. That's the fucking archdemon isn't it.
Kill it.
As though in a trance, she turned and started not up the road, but up the steep hill, which looked like it would take her right up the peak. Her hands scrabbled for roots, small tree trunks, anything to assist her in the ascent. She thought she was making some progress when, all of a sudden, the sound - or whatever it was - stopped. She looked up to the peak, and the archdemon was no longer howling at the sky. Instead, its interest had been drawn by something else. She looked to the west, to where another, higher peak, stood craggily against the night sky, the snowcaps reflecting the starlight. On that peak was another dragon, this one a livid white, not skeletal, but solid and hale.
Wait. That's… that's the one. That's the one I dreamed of. Not the archdemon. Or is it? Do they all look the same?
She leaned back on the tree she was using for a foothold, which was growing straight out from the hillside. She waited to see what happened.
The second dragon threw its head back and screeched, closer to the noise she was expecting, the one it had made in every dream she'd had since Eddin Rasphander had arrived in the Alienage and set this ridiculous series of events in motion. The highpitched groan of metal on metal like the cranes that moved cargo from ship to dock most days on the harbor, under the power of four longshoremen and two mules, but loud enough to echo across the valleys. The dragon on the western peak began to beat its wings and Ten could see it take flight before the frigid wind descended through the pass to shriek in her ears. It flew slow circles around the mountains, its white belly livid against the blackened sky. The archdemon's head was on a swivel, watching it, but not making a move. She held her breath, like that would have mattered, next to the wind howling down the mountain passes her paltry breathing, heavy as it was, would not have carried.
And then, it dove. Electricity crackled as lightning and snow came out of the gullet of the great beast. It descended upon the archdemon, who opened its jaws in anticipation of the attack. But the dragon feinted at the last moment, and its jaws closed on nothing. The dragon shrieked again, and got its jaws into the archdemon's back. The archdemon let out a new noise, this one higher pitched, and a jolt of pain and astonishment struck Ten still where she sat.
"What the…"
She looked down, and Alistair, apparently having felt the last bit, had exited his tent, rubbing his eyes, his breath making clouds in the dry frigid air.
"Ten, why are you in a tree?" he asked, "Or am I still dreaming and you're just as much of a madwoman in my mind as you are in real life?"
"Shut up and look!" she hissed, pointing.
He turned his face skyward. "Oh shit…" he breathed.
The archdemon was tottering, losing its footing on the sharp peak of the mountain, and with a crack of rock and a crash of snow, it lost its balance and toppled down the opposite side of the mountain and out of sight.
"Come on!" Alistair exclaimed. He put his hands up, and though she usually would have protested, Ten let him lift her down out of the tree and put her feet on the cold stone of the road. He dashed around the side of the mountain with her at his heels to see where it had landed.
At the bottom of the valley on the other side, they could just make out the dark shape of the archdemon.
"There's no chance we're going to make it down to there to finish it off before it collects itself, is there," Ten sighed, watching it pick itself up. It was wounded, to be sure, but even injured it could have knocked them both halfway to Nevarra with a single wingbeat.
"Oh thank the Maker I was afraid you were going to whip out a length of rope and jump off the side of the mountain or something," Alistair said.
"No…" said Ten, "But there's more of them now. I can feel them."
"Yes," he said, "They're scurrying in from…" He squinted at the valley below, "Fucking everywhere. There must be an entrance to the Deep Roads around here."
They watched silently as the faraway shapes of darkspawn erupted out of the ground, and also over land from the east. They surrounded the limping shape of the archdemon and, like ants with a rotting fruit, picked it up and carried it off into the mountain pass and disappeared into the darkness. The tingling slowly abated from her like the tide going out.
"Don't suppose we ought to follow them…" Ten sighed, "It's injured. I feel like a coward, letting this opportunity go."
"Discretion is the better part of valor," Alistair cautioned, "It would take us all night to get down there, they'll be gone by the time we arrive. Probably just to pop out somewhere else miles away and meanwhile we're wandering the Deep Roads like the idiots we are."
"All right, you're at one in five things being smart," she sighed.
"What were you doing in the tree?"
"It… called to me," said Ten, turning to limp back to camp, "It was like the only thing I wanted to do was climb that mountain, straight up, and put my ax in its spine."
"You don't have your ax," he said, "Ten, what is wrong with you? You're not even wearing shoes."
She looked down and she had to admit she looked an absolute fright. From her knees down was a scraped-up mess from when she had tried her ill-fated scramble up the hill. The pain had been with her the whole time, she supposed, just dulled by whatever it was the archdemon had done to put her out of her head like that. "Shit," she said, "It had me acting like one of them didn't it. Bodily harm be damned. Nothing in my brain but murder. "
"Suicide more like," said Alistair, "I haven't seen that before. Be careful."
"Thanks, Alistair, that's really useful advice," she sighed. She limped back up the road towards camp.
"Ten, you're bleeding everywhere," he said.
"It's my penance for losing my shit once again. We've established I don't have much of a self-preservation instinct, no need to rub it in," she said, but let him get one arm under her shoulders so the bulk of her weight was not on her shredded soles.
"Yes but usually that manifests in you picking a fight that only looks insane, not one that actually is insane," he said.
"There's something off here," she said, "In these mountains. I feel like my brain's not fully connected to the rest of me."
"I didn't notice anything. Aside from the air being thin."
Back by the dying fire, she sat herself down and got her kit, doing her best to clean out the gashes on her feet and legs with moonshine and a cleanish rag.
"Should I wake Wynne?" Alistair asked, watching her with a look of trepidation on his face.
"Nah," she said, "It can wait until morning. She needs her rest." She bandaged both feet and pulled a pair of socks that were several sizes too big over them.
"So do you," he said, "Wait a second, are those my socks?"
"Took them from an abandoned washline," she said, "I mean you can have them when I'm done, though not sure you'd want them now…"
"I've never been that hard up for socks."
"We clearly grew up very differently," she said, "Anyway, as interesting as that was, you do have a point. You should try to sleep as well, though after that…"
"Yeah," he agreed, "Best attempted, though."
She crawled back to her tent, buried her face in Pigeon's slightly less pungent than usual fur, and shut her eyes.
